1) Mars orbiter scores 100 rounds.
- The Indian Mars orbiter spacecraft completed its 100th orbit around Mars.
- It is also gradually coming out of the blackout it had entered earlier this month, Indian Space Research Organisation has said.
- MOM remains healthy and all its payloads are performing satisfactorily, ISRO. The Mars Colour Camera has taken 405 frames so far.
2) India, South Africa renew science and technology cooperation pact.
- India and South Africa have renewed an agreement to extend cooperation in the various fields of science and technology such as astronomy, social innovation, biotechnology, agriculture and indigenous knowledge systems.
- It was renewed by signing Fourth Programme of Cooperation during the 10th Joint Committee meeting on Science and Technology Cooperation between both nations held in Johannesburg, South Africa.
3) Airtel launches 4G services in Mysore.
- Telecom major Bharti Airtel launched 4G services in Mysore that will allow its customers to access high speed access to the Internet.
- Airtel customers in Mysore can now access 4G LTE technology and enjoy the most advanced Internet experience, the company said in a statement.
- They will get a complimentary upgrade to Airtel 4G at 3G prices.
- It should be noted that Bharti Airtel is first Telecom major in India to launch 4G LTE services in the country.
- They had launched the India’s first 4G services in Kolkata in April 2012.
- Later in the course of time they had expanded this service in other major cities including Delhi, Chennai, Bengaluru, Mangalore, Pune, Chandigarh and Amritsar.
4) Solar power at 4,000 MW, Rajasthan in the lead.
- India’s solar installed capacity has crossed the 4,000 MW mark.
- With close to 1.128 Mw of projects, Rajasthan has taken the lead ahead of all other states.
- It has elbowed out Gujarat, which has 957 Mw of solar power projects, from the top-slot for the first time.
- Apart from the regular solar power-rich states, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and newly formed Telangana have now joined the solar bandwagon.
Top five states in India are (in terms of installed capacity):
- Rajasthan: 1147 MW
- Gujarat: 1000 MW
- Madhya Pradesh: 58 MW
- Maharashtra: 7 MW
- Andhra Pradesh: 4 MW
5) Robot controlled by thoughts and brain signals developed.
- A robot that can be controlled with your thoughts and brain signals has been developed, says new research.
- The robot is developed by researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Switzerland.
- The robot can be controlled remotely through brain signals and can perform various tasks.
- The team of researchers, headed by Professor Jose del R. Millain, particularly had disabled people in mind while working on the concept to restore a sense of independence to the disabled.
6) MDR-TB spreads less within households.
- Unlike people with drug-susceptible TB, those with multi drug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) are less likely to transmit disease to others living in the same household (also known as household contacts), a study published in the journal PLOS Medicine found.
- Although it may not be right to extrapolate the findings to the community level, within households, MDR-TB surely has ``relatively low fitness [be less capable of spreading] compared with drug-susceptible TB``.
7) Rosetta comet mission extended.
- Europe announced its comet-chasing mission Rosetta would be extended until September 2016 and may end with the dying mothership touching down on the comet.
- In a final flourish to the historic mission, the Rosetta spacecraft may be ‘landed’ on Comet 67P/ Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
- Rosetta thus would rejoin its payload, the robot lab Philae, which it has nurtured throughout an odyssey spanning billions of kilometres.
8) Google adds `undo send` feature in Gmail.
- Google is making it easier to steer clear of the trouble that can be caused by a misdirected or inappropriate email.
- An option to cancel the delivery of an email within 30 seconds of hitting the send button is now a standard safeguard in Google’s Gmail as part of a settings change made this week.
- The “undo send” feature had already been available for the past six years in Google’s experimental labs, but that required Gmail users taking extra steps to get it.
9) Kerala’s Trinity College of Engineering launches student satellite TASSAT project.
- Trinity College of Engineering in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala launched the Trinity Adrak Student Satellite (TASSAT) building project.
- The student satellite project is scheduled for completion by 2018.
- The satellite was named so because the funding for the ambitious initiative came from an Oman-based company called Al Adrak.
10) World`s first flexible and skin-like display developed.
- A team of scientists led by Indian-American Debashis Chanda from University of Central Florida (UCF) developed a nature-inspired technique for creating the world`s first full-colour, flexible thin-film reflective display.
- The findings were published in Nature Communications journal in June 2015.
- This technology can help you switch your dress colour to a different colour in the blink of an eye, if someone at a wedding reception is wearing the same dress as yours.
11) MOM has enough fuel to last a few more years.
- After outliving its six-month lifespan, the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) has crossed another hurdle - the solar conjunction.
- ``It now has enough fuel to last a few more years``, said A.S. Kiran Kumar, Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
- The sun had blocked Mars from the earth, snapping communication with the satellite, from June 8 to 22.
12) Google`s new self-driving cars cruising Silicon Valley roads.
- Google’s self-driving bubble cars are chugging slowly and steadily down Mountain View streets, California.
- The company revealed that the cars are now test-driving themselves around the city of Mountain View.
- Their debut on public roads happened after more than a year of being tested on a former Central Valley military base and other private lots.
- The tiny cars will join more than 20 of Google’s autonomous Lexus SUVs that have been steering themselves around Silicon Valley streets and freeways for years, and use the same software and detailed mapping system.
13) Light Combat Helicopter successfully clears hot weather trials at Jodhpur.
- Indigenously developed Light Combat Helicopter (LCH) prototype has been successfully cleared hot weather trials at Jodhpur, Rajasthan.
- The testing involved temperature survey of engine bay and hydraulic system apart from handling qualities, assessment of performance and loads at different all up weights etc.
- With this successful test it will pave way for the Initial Operational Clearance (IOC), which is expected to receive it by the end 2015 and is likely to enter production from 2017-18. Earlier in March 2015, LCH had successfully cleared cold weather trials at Leh at a temperature of -180o C and at an altitude of 4.1 km.
14) INS Teg in Seychelles for surveillance.
- As part of India’s deepening maritime security cooperation with Indian Ocean littoral nations, INS Teg a stealth frigate of the Indian Navy which is on a two-month long deployment in the South Indian Ocean has docked at Port Victoria in Seychelles.
- This is part of its mission to carry out joint surveillance in the Seychelles Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in areas selected by Seychelles Coast Guard, with SCG personnel embarked onboard.
15) Amazon catches up, gets past Flipkart on site visits.
- As e-commerce players battle it out for buyers’ attention, Amazon India has caught up with Flipkart and overtaken Snapdeal in terms of monthly unique visitors in May.
- According to data from Internet analytics firm comScoreData, Amazon India had 23.6 million unique visitors in May, edging past Flipkart narrowly.
- While Flipkart saw 23.5 million unique visitors, Snapdeal had 17.9 million in May.
16) Support for marriage equality on FB.
- Facebook has introduced a new feature that lets users show off their support for marriage equality by superimposing a rainbow over their profile picture.
- CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally announced the Celebrate Pride tool on his personal page following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that same-sex couples have the constitutional right to marry.
17) Facebook Lite for Android launched in India.
- Facebook launched a new version of its app for Android phones in India.
- Aimed at emerging markets, ‘Facebook Lite’ is a lighter version that has been optimized for slower data connections.
- There is a large number of users who are on 2G, and one of the feedbacks we have received is that the app does not load fast on some devices.
- This lighter version has been developed so that the app works well across all network conditions and on all types of phones.
18) Hilleman Laboratories developed affordable Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) vaccine.
- Hilleman Laboratories (HL), a global vaccine research and development organisation announced the success of a preclinical trial conducted for Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) vaccine.
- The research was published in the journal Vaccine.
- The new vaccine formulation is expected to fill the immunization gap in the country as it is more cost effective and immunogenic compared to existing available vaccines.
- The new vaccine was proved as 4 to 10 times more potent when compared to the existing licensed vaccines.
19) 15-Year-Old Byron Wake becomes Britain`s Youngest `Cyborg`.
- A 15-year-old boy named Byron Wake has become Britain’s youngest ‘cyborg’ i.e. part-human, part machine.
- He achieved this feat after inserting xNT microchip under the skin using hypodermic syringe.
- The chip is the size of a grain of rice and is encased in bio-safe glass. It has ability to emit a low-power radio signal that can perform simple functions such as unlocking a mobile or opening a door and operate some Bluetooth devices with a wave of his hand.
- It should be noted that Kevin Warwick from UK was the world’s first cyborg when he had a chip implanted in his body in 1998. It is estimated that around 10,000 people worldwide have implanted the chip in their body.
20) First 3D anatomic heart model printed using multiple imaging techniques.
- Team of heart experts including an Indian-origin surgeon Dr. Joseph Vettukattil for first time have printed three dimensional (3D) anatomic heart model using multiple imaging techniques.
- This hybrid 3D model of heart was successfully printed using integration of 3D transesophageal echocardiography (3DTEE) and computed tomography (CT).
- The team had used specialised software to register images in order to selectively integrate datasets and produce an accurate anatomic model of the heart.
21) Methane on Pluto confirmed: NASA.
- NASA’s New Horizon probe set for a Pluto flyby has confirmed that there is frozen methane on Pluto’s surface.
- The Earth-based astronomers first observed Methane on Pluto in 1976.
- Soon, we will know if there are differences in the presence of methane ice from one part of Pluto to another.